'Jack Charlton would've seen it coming'

From Cheshire to the bars of Cork there's talk of little else: the dramatic exit of Roy Keane

His mouth is in danger of ruining not only his own career, but the expectations of a nation. But, arriving back at his Cheshire home yesterday after being kicked out of the World Cup, Roy Keane clearly felt he had said enough.

The former captain of Ireland's football team offered no further insight into his clash with the team's manager, Mick McCarthy, to reporters camping on his doorstep. But in his home town in the Republic of Ireland everyone is talking, and about little else.

In The Templeacre Tavern in Gurranabraher, Keane's local when he goes back home to Cork, the sparkle has gone out of their weekend. They were expecting a few drinks and some craic around the sporting highlight, the rugby final between Munster and Leicester. "This has put the rugby into the background," admited one patron. "We were all looking forward to that."

The gentlemen of The Berries Social Club agree. This is a soccer pub; its walls insulated with photographs of the frequent victories of the Temple United teams. Among the frames is one of a green Irish shirt, number 6, signed R Keane. The men of The Berries say they are disgusted. Of course, they saw it coming for a long time, this or something like this. Look at Denis Irwin – everyone knows why he quit international soccer, everyone knows how the Ireland manager treated him.

And I have asked the wrong question: "What do you think about Roy Keane?" The response is robust: "You mean, what do we think about Mick McCarthy?"

Nothing has changed about the way they think about Roy Keane. These are temperate men. Keane may like to visit this pub sometimes during his visits to Cork, it may be frequented – as it is today – by his brother or his nephew, but there is nothing blind about their protective fidelity.

Things went on "out there", they admit, that they can't know. They seem to agree, too, that McCarthy, despite their doubts concerning his treatment of Denis Irwin, had been doing a good job in building up a convincing Irish team. But it wouldn't have happened, for example, under Jack Charlton's management. Charlton would have seen it coming. Then there's a reminder about Charlton's treatment of David O'Leary – every team will have its problems, they say.

But as newspaper reports of the Football Association of Ireland's regret that it had not facilitated the Irish skipper with his journey back to England are passed around the bar, reactions coalesce. Disgust, they say. Disgust. The television clips of Keane, isolated at Saipan airport, give rise to a sense of pain. A feeling that this man they know and admire has been left alone and comfortless in a foreign land to find his long way home.

Up here Keane is among people who know where he came from because it's where they came from. They may never get to where he got, but in getting there Keane showed the way. And as they huddle around the screen in the bar the question is voiced – what does this mean for Ireland? It means, they decide, that it's not so much that Keane is right, as that he's necessary. As well as being right.